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UNN to Honour its Pioneer Graduates

WOW! Am happy to hear this. UNN is set to honour its pioneer graduates. The V.C recently inaugurated a committee recently to be in charge of the one week celebration
The school website posted the news in its website as follows:

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The University of
Nigeria, Nsukka, is planning a week-long ceremony to honour its pioneer
graduates (1963 class) as part of the activities to mark the 2013
Founder’s day of the Institution which is expected to run from October
1-7, 2013.

It will be recalled that the doors of the University were opened to 220 students in 1960, while 150 of them graduated in 1963.

Inaugurating the Committee on 50th
anniversary of 1st graduates of the University of Nigeria, on Monday,
the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Bartho Okolo said that it was a thing of
honour for the University to have produced its first graduates three
years after it was established in 1960 and would therefore be pleased to
honour its pioneer graduates who started its journey to restoring the
dignity of man.

“I hereby inaugurate you for the job of
organising the 50th anniversary of the first graduates of the University
of Nigeria; I hope you will do this with your very best. We all know
your antecedents as men and women of character and purpose, and we are
very optimistic that you will do the job very well, congratulations”, he
said.

Prof Okolo assured the committee of the
support of the University administration to ensure the success of the
event and make it memorable. Responding, Chairman of the Committee,
Dr Okey Ewurum said that it was important to recognise the pioneer
graduates of the Institution because they believed in the future of the
University when other people were not confident of its survival.

“Whatever name the University of Nigeria
has made, as the first indigenous University in Nigeria, is made
possible because of the quality of products it has put forward in the
labour market. If we cannot celebrate any other class, it is important
that we celebrate the first graduates who left the University in 1963.
This is because when this University started, most people did not give
it a chance of survival.”

“It was called a glorified secondary
school because people thought it would collapse, so if the university
survived, it was because of that first class who believed in its
future”, he said.

Dr Ewurum, who was the President,
National Alumni Association of the University of Nigeria, from
2001-2005, added that the uniqueness of the pioneer set was evident in
their active involvement in the affairs of the University as four of
them had served as national Alumni Presidents out of the total of 10
presidents so far recorded by the alumni Association.

He therefore pledged the willingness of
his committee to work towards the success of the event and thanked the
University administration for finding him and members of his committee
worthy for the job.